Beyond The Baselines
Plan It, They Will Come For Pickle & Padel
Patricio Misitrano has been a Director of Racquets at some of the best-known clubs in the country. From the hallowed clay courts at both Wee Burn and Greenwich Country Clubs through to the paddle courts at New Canaan Field Club, Patricio has served elite memberships across both Westchester and Fairfield counties for decades. But now not only will he be a service provider, he’ll also be a stockholder and shareholder of his new club.
The Sports Haus, which will open its doors this coming summer, is a new, energized method of bringing pickleball, padel and golf to one space. Three sports, one enormous warehouse.
With three partners, each with a focus on racquet sports in their own way, and a bravado and entrepreneurial instinct rarely seen, Patricio Misitrano has moved into the ownership category in the industry. He’s only sent the blueprints to the city of Norwalk, but he already has over six hundred applications for membership.
Applications For Membership Outpacing Building Of Facility
It’s a great way to build a club – building to suit the waiting membership. With approximately 70 percent of the pre-signed up members being individuals, the rest of the club’s membership will be comprised of families and, here’s a great new idea, local teaching racquets and golf professionals. The Sport Haus will offer a club professional membership, created to welcome those local pros inside the walls, both to better understand these new-to-market racquet sports and with the hope that these professionals bring and teach the sports back at their respective clubs. Rain days might no longer be lost revenue days as pros will be able to bring their members and guests inside.
Patricio has brought together a veritable think tank as the team behind this new venture: Juan Arraya, Director of Racquets at Greenwich Country Club and Mark Parsons, a fellow director from Long Island’s Aspetuck Valley Country Club, and Mark Fischl known to most of us as the voice behind platform tennis broadcasts and former president of the APTA. These four industry leaders have teamed up to create a literal think tank to blaze a new road in the industry.
Creating a marketing plan focused on their email newsletter and website at www.sports.haus, this team found a vacant warehouse located in the downtown district of Norwalk, CT. Bringing air-conditioning to a 30,000 square foot warehouse is just one of the obstacles that they have overcome as they are bringing excitement and members from the affluent areas of Greenwich, Darien and New Canaan to South Norwalk, once a no-go area, but now a bustling hive of streets with restaurants, cafes and young people.
The Sports Haus will have its own café with beer and wine where one can watch action across five pickleball and four padel courts and two golf simulators. Armed with the knowledge of who is ready to apply, Misitrano has both the professional and social side of the business wrapped up in one giant warehouse.
Join us on the podcast this week with Patricio Misitrano, a former Argentine padel player who has brought his love for that sport and all racquet sports to SoNo – South Norwalk – as he builds his dream, The Sports Haus.